The ongoing investigation of Sherlock Holmes, reported from the Peoria, Illinois outpost of Baker Street's dirtiest half a dozen.

Thursday, January 7, 2016

And now, a palate cleanser . . . that other TV show.

"Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective is absolutely everywhere on television, in ancestral DNA if not always in name (although of course there is also Elementary, though that tends to feel like a descendant who was named in honour of his grandfather)."

Now that Sherlock has established that you can do just about anything in Sherlock Holmes's mind palace with the right combination of pharmaceuticals, we have a whole new way to appreciate CBS's Elementary. It could be Sherlock Canon, if it takes place in Cumberbatch Holmes's mind, too, as he imagines his Victorian self's descendants living in the modern world.

Things have just gotten to be that strange.

So what's Sherlock Sherlock's imaginary past self's grandson Sherlock up to this week? And what about Sherlock Sherlock's imaginary past self's son, Morland? Let's look in on them, shall we?

Grover Ogden is apparently the Arthur Conan Doyle of Elementary world, we learned tonight, just before a gory wood-chipper moment. He's writing about Mr. Elementary and Joan under different names in a novel called The Heart Bled Blue. Gregson's sister is even reading it.

Side note: somehow a fellow in India has reviewed this episode on IMDB before it ever aired here, and the fact that he's calling Lucy Liu too wooden when tonight she really isn't at all, along with some other comments, make me wonder.

Elephant dung coffee.

"I am the basis for several characters, across multiple media," or something like that, Mr. Elementary says as he sips said beverage. He's taking the mind palace rabbit hole to a whole new level . . . claiming Monk, House, Psych, The Mentalist, even . . . Sherlock? Bad enough that Christmas special left us wondering whether one Cumberbatch was a figment of the other, or vice versa, but now a BBC Sherlock inspired by Mr. Elementary?

Who needs drugs to get their mind a little bent with all this going on? If Mr. Elementary goes to sleep and dreams of Robert Downey Jr., I'm running into the streets singing "Columbine's New-fangled Banner!"

This week's mystery is pretty creepy on a lot of levels, and one of Elementary's better ones, sensational as always, but with a bit more life to it than previous seasons. The solution seems a bit obvious at about the thirty-five minute mark, but that's okay. Plenty of creepy left in getting there.

Wait a minute . . . speaking of creepy, it just sunk in that Henry Watson wrote a novel where his daughter is having sex with her detective friend. "I missed you, Joanie. That's the real reason I wrote about you." Why did I have to have that thought just before he said that? Why?

And speaking of creepy, Papa Morland Holmes, with his moment of evil in the last seconds of the previous episode, has been noticeably absent this week.

Oooooh, the devious Bagginses tricked me, they did! The real villain of this piece feels a lot like . . . oh, this episode "Miss Taken" is all about daughters, isn't it? And if a certain actress is currently too busy with a hit HBO show, a horror movie out this weekend, etc., then perhaps we have one more daughter here.

Nice.

This has been one trippy week all around -- they say that a high tide raises all boats -- perhaps all the excitement over the Sherlock Christmas special will buoy Elementary's ratings this week as well.

"There is an element of self-worship in almost all Sherlock fans — only the truly clever among us can appreciate such a clever man cleverly getting his clever on all over the place."